Captain Hannah Priest says St Kilda’s up-and-about brigade will be battening down the hatches and using Sunday’s Indigenous Round clash against Narrm as a true measure of where it sits among the competition.
The Saints have started their fourth AFLW campaign in emphatic fashion with successive wins – already levelling the number of victories from last season – over expansion sides Sydney and Hawthorn to open its Season Seven account.
Last year’s Grand Finalists will be the club’s biggest test to-date however, with Priest adamant the Saints will be utilising this weekend’s encounter to get a proper gauge on its promising early season form.
“(Narrm) are a very experienced side, obviously making the Grand Final last season, and we’re really looking to seeing where we’re at this weekend,” Priest told SEN.
“We’ve start the season two-and-zip, so I think this opportunity is huge for us. We can be challenged by a very experienced side and we’ll be taking it to them as best we can.
“We’d love to see as many Saints fans as we can at Moorabbin on Sunday afternoon and we’re really happy and proud to be hosting Indigenous Round as well against Narrm.”
St Kilda has put in two spirited performances against the Demons in previous years, securing its first ever win in 2020 courtesy of Caitlin Greiser’s booming late goal, before a final-quarter fadeout last January took the shine off an otherwise hard-fought affair.
A lot has changed between the that match and the one upcoming. St Kilda boasts eight new players on its list – plus the returning Georgia Patrikios and Clara Fitzpatrick – but hasn’t struggled with team synergy in the season proper despite the influx of new personnel and quick turnaround between campaigns.
“Towards the back-end of Season Six (in March) we gained some really good momentum and the work in our gameplan and understanding of our group really came out,” Priest said.
“We’ve been able to continue our momentum and learn and grow in a shorter period of time rather than having a big off-season.”
New recruit Erin McKinnon has been one of the club’s fresh faces to pack a sizeable impact in her first two matches in red, white and black.
The All-Australian ruck, who will go up against the Demons’ Lauren Pearce on Sunday, leads the competition for hit-outs (55) and has been equally impressive with her physicality at ground level.
“The game this weekend will be a very good challenge for us to see where we actually sit,” McKinnon said.
“Narrm will definitely punish us on the scoreboard if we do make those mistakes, but we’re pretty optimistic we can punish them on return as well.
“We’ll keep playing the football we’ve been playing and the gameplan Dal’s been trying to get into us. A big theme for us has been ‘just keep swimming’ and never give up and play until the 80th minute.
“No matter what the score happens to be or is, it’s just about making sure we keep fighting.”
